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Home / Home Affairs embarks on Project Khaedu

Home Affairs embarks on Project Khaedu

2019-08-13  Kuzeeko Tjitemisa

Home Affairs embarks on Project Khaedu

WINDHOEK – About twenty-five Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration officials yesterday embarked on a two-week workshop aimed at addressing challenges and strengths and also exploring ways of improving service delivery.

The project, Replication of Khaedu Project, is spearheaded by the Namibia Institute of Public Administration and Management (NIPAM), in collaboration with the home affairs ministry as well as the South African High Commission in Namibia.

“Khaedu” means “challenge” in Tshi-Venda, and Project Khaedu has been designed to train managers by means of various learning reinforcement processes to bring about change within their own areas of operational control.

Speaking at the opening of the workshop in the Windhoek yesterday, Minister of Home Affairs and Immigration, Frans Kapofi, said there is a need to break the mindset of “working in silos” and to work collectively, as one government, in the true spirit of Harambee.

Kapofi said this approach, to address the front-end of ensuring that Namibia’s ease of doing business is favourable, requires a rethink of the way the ministry does business. 

“It requires changing the mindset from working in silos to working together as a collective, as one government, in the true spirit of Harambee,” Kapofi said.

He said to amplify the importance of the project and collaboration; the Project Khaedu has been tabled before Cabinet and has received the highest form of approval and sanctioning.
“I was impressed by this new project, but also excited to hear about NIPAM’s progress as a management development institute,” Kapofi said. 

“Just as the National School of Government has evolved in terms of status and repositioning, so too has NIPAM, in terms of its mandate,” he added.  

Kapofi said he is particularly pleased to hear that this training programme is not just a South African programme but a larger programme for the African continent to ensure collaboration across public service training institutions, in order to strengthen administrative capacity and create “The Africa We Want”.
Speaking at the same occasion, NIPAM Executive Director, Maria Nangolo, said the Replication of Khaedu in Namibia is the outcome of a three-year Memorandum of Understanding between the NIPAM and its counterpart, the National School of Government (NSG) of South Africa.  

“Namibia and South Africa share a rich history in that both natives of the respective countries were subjected to second-class education called Bantu education,” Nangolo said. 
She said the road to attaining quality education for the majority of the citizenry in both these countries continues to be a challenge and this manifestation is evident in the service delivery throughout the public sector.

She said NSG and NIPAM, through their respective governmental statutes, are tasked to provide continuous training and capacity-building interventions to address the dynamic nature of the public sector. 
In Namibia, she said just like in other Southern African Development Community countries, the sector is characterised by new entrants as well as existing employees. As such, continuous capacity building and training is required to address skills gaps and skills mismatch in the public sector.

“NIPAM is the institute where knowledge skills and abilities and new ways of thinking are nurtured; where collective aspiration is set free; and where people are continually learning to match their occupational skills demands,” she said.

She said the opening of the collaborative Khaedu project in Namibia is a demonstration of what partnerships can achieve. 

Nangolo said the project would address the management and leadership competencies required to improve service delivery and instil a systems thinking perspective within the public sector, targeting the leadership. 


 


2019-08-13  Kuzeeko Tjitemisa

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